(DATE: 2013-01-15) This report from a cruiser currently in Cartagena:
Sad to say but crime has reached us boaters here in Cartagena. There is a marine agent and a Customs officer that are extorting foreign vessels with a false tourist visa scheme. The agent will take your boat papers and wait until there are only 2 days (from 7) left on the time to apply for a temporary importation that all foreign vessels must do if they plan to stay in Colombian waters for more than a few days. At that time they (the agent and the Customs guy) tell the captain that they cannot do the temporary importation because the Captain needs to have a tourist visa for 180 days (which is not doable as immigration will only give tourists 90 days at a time if they come by air or sea) or the boat must leave Colombia. (It takes over a week to get any visa from the Colombian Foreign Ministry. The 180 day tourist visa is available from Colombian embassies and consulates OUTSIDE Colombia).
They put all kinds of pressure and tell the captain that the agent will see if he can get the Customs guy to help them out and that they have a lawyer who can get them a tourist visa right away for 1 million Colombia pesos. Then the agent will tell the captain to sleep on it. The next morning they call and tell the captain that the Customs guy will do the importation for the 1 million pesos that it would cost to get a tourist visa. They tried this on me and when I showed than that I have a retiree visa good for one year and have had two temporary importations done in the past two years they backed off.
The fact is that there is no need to avoid coming here because of this, as there are three marine agents that operate in Cartagena. The two who are okay are a German named Manfred and Gladys Ramos. All a visitor has to do is ask at the Club Nautico or Club De Pesca office for the phone number for either one of them.
DATE: 2014-12-20 00:00